Background
Ahmed was born in Sylhet, Bangladesh. When he was nine months old, he moved with his parents to England and was brought up in East London in a devout Muslim family. He attended the Sir John Cass Redcoat School in Stepney from the age of 11 to 17 achieving 7 GCSEs. He then attended the Hammersmith College, where he achieved a BTEC in Business and Finance. He later managed restaurants, including the Titanic, part of the White Starline Group, owned by Marco Pierre White. He was in the Air Training Corps and dreamed of becoming an RAF pilot but decided to go into business instead.
Ahmed is currently the CEO of SAVortex, which specialises in high-speed, energy efficient hand dryers. Ahmed's development of the SAVortex technology was shown in an hour-long documentary, Hot Air, broadcast on Sky. Ahmed initially financed the business himself. Ahmed was a director of the IT recruitment consultancy firm IT People until May 2006, and a director of Magenta Partnerships Limited from June 2006 until February 2007.
He has made speeches to the young business enterprise community, and the more general enterprise community in Britain.
Read more about this topic: Syed Ahmed
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